Spiritual Solutions

LIFE

16th Day, Saturday. Read John 4:1-26.

Life is a phase of Being, the expression of which manifests as animation, activity, and vigor. The consciousness of eternal life places one in the stream of life that never fails.

The whole race needs a spiritual quickening of the life principle; its origin is in Divine Mind. Life is the gift of God. “Stir up the gift of God, which is in thee.” To think intently about life is to quicken it into action. To talk about energy, force, power, life, will make the life currents flow swiftly throughout the whole being.

To Jesus the God presence was an abiding flame –a flame of life everlasting that He felt in every cell of His body making Him more and more alive, cleansing and purifying Him until He became every whit perfect.

By mastering carnality Jesus opened the way for all men to attain eternal life. During our higher realizations of Truth we are often conscious of this abiding flame working in and through us.

I now make alive all the cells in my organism by mentally infusing into them the Christ consciousness. This is the new birth, which is transforming my body and raising it to electrical energy. This was carried to its fulfillment by Jesus in the resurrection of His body. The next step in divine evolution is the spiritualization of the body, or the Ascension.

The quickening life in me is now brought into expression by my holding and repeating this statement of Truth:

“I have the Mind of Christ. My words are spiritually quickened and they are alive forevermore. I am filled with the vitality and vigor and health of Jesus Christ.”

Questions:

1. How does life manifest itself?

2. Where does life originate?

3. What was the God presence to Jesus?

4. How do we make alive all the cells of our organism?

Christ within me is my life. Every part of my body temple is filled with the vigor and strength of Christ.

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

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 Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-eight years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions.

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Man is created by God without limitations; he is a limitless creature. His only limitation is his own faith, his own vision, his own acceptance of the truth of his identity.

The only limitation is in thought. Finding himself having to do something he thinks he cannot do, a man or woman has mesmerized himself or herself with bondage, lack, failure. The only law for you is freedom and success, your joy and your perfect expression; your only limitation is that of your own thought.

Jesus tells us, “Whatsoever you shall ask in prayer believing, you shall receive.” “Whatsoever” expresses all substance, ideas, creation; it connotes limitlessness. In Psalm 34:10 we read, “Those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.” This is another blanket promise.

Again, Jesus says, “Fear not, little flock, for it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.” How could it be expanded further than that? Life is consciousness, and if we are conscious of limitations in life, then so it will be for us. But if we believe with the poet, “No pent-up Utica contracts our powers but the whole boundless universe is ours,” then our whole lives are boundless and limitless. Master Chunyi Lin, in teaching the ancient art of Qigong says what he calls the “password” to universal energy as being, “I am in the universe; the universe is in my body. The universe and I combine together.” Or as Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.”

A good illustration of the limitlessness of life is the water faucet. The supply of water is without limit, relatively of course, but you are given the power to regulate the amount that flows through the faucet at any given time. You can turn it off completely, or you can permit a trickle or a great flood to rush through. You cannot see or touch your own spiritual faucet, but it is the great reality, the control valve of your beliefs and ideas.

To turn off your faucet is to affirm, “Life is miserable; there is no justice; people are evil; things never work out; God is remote if he exists at all.” There are people like this, wallowing in their world of bad luck, and evil exists for them in a very real sense in their conceptions and beliefs.

To turn the faucet on just a little is to believe that it is a terrible world and you have so many problems, but at least there is a little relief through prayer, a refuge however slight and temporary against the woes of the world. In this sense prayer is thought of as a brief pause between problems and worries, and thus it becomes.

But, to turn your faucet wide open and to keep it that way every moment, every hour every day, is to say to yourself and to believe, “There is no power but God; I can of myself do nothing but through the power of God in me I can do all things; all around me there is good and nothig but good. I walk safely, unafraid and untouched, through the valley of the shadow of evil, but evil can never be to me more than a shadow, never a substance. All that I need is with me for complete security, happiness, health, peace, strength and prosperity.”

No matter what circumstances may be ours to face, there are no limitations. Turn on your spiritual faucet. Believe in the limitlessness of God. No man on earth has the right to tell you that God cannot do what needs to be done in your life, your mind, your body. Anyone who does tell you it cannot be done is speaking of his own consciousness of life, not yours, and is the false prophet against whom Jesus warned man.

When facing some challenging situation we should never limit God by thinking what cannot be done, nor should we limit ourselves with thoughts of impossibilities or belittle things that can be done through us. Certainly you might feel that you alone cannot do a certain thing. Jesus had that feeling too, but he knew and proved that through him God could do all things. There is a creative process which is the reality in us.

There is a wonderful message for us all in Jesus’ thought, “It is not I, but the Father.” This is as we submerge the thought of the personal self in its limitations and go to the thought of God as boundless, all-powerful, free, that we become aware of the infinite power and process of God working in and through us in a dynamic way.

Instead of dwelling on personal weaknesses, shortcomings, lack, think rather of strength, perfection, and dauntless courage, and of the great resource of God within you, in the midst of you. Acknowledge that God working through you can do all things and that you can therefore do what needs to be done.

Give the limitless spirit that God has given you a chance. Prove that it will open to you the realm of perfect life and peace and achievement and supply. As the Bible says, “Prove me now, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour out for you an overflowing blessing.”

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

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The year 2010 can be the best year you have ever known if you will have it that way. To make it so, you do not need to draw up a long list of good resolutions, although these are fine if you can keep them. Whether you have already made some resolutions or not, I suggest you adopt a policy of great expectations instead of good resolutions.

A spiritual law as exact as the laws of gravity, electromagnetics, and atomic fission, stands in back of this phenomenon of great expectations. Jesus stated it in the gospel of Matthew in this way: “Go; be it done for you as you have believed.” (Matt. 8:13) and “According to your faith be it done to you.” (Matt. 9:29) In the J. B. Phillips’ translation we read: “Everything will happen as you have believed it will.” Could you not characterize these statements as saying that convinced expectation is a forerunner of a certain outcome?

What are you expecting in 2010? Your expectations will have much to do with what the year will bring you.

God made you in His image and after His likeness; therefore, it follows that you are creative, even as God is creative. You create your own circumstances through your thinking, feeling, believing, and expecting faculties of mind. Many of the great men of the world have known this. Thomas Carlyle put it this way: “Man makes the circumstances and, spiritually as well as economically, is the artificer of his own fortune.” Disraeli said, “Man is not the creature of circumstances. Circumstances are the creatures of men.”

Behind every outward circumstance stands an unseen, invisible thought, feeling, or word – an expectation of good or ill. The Bible tells us: “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” (Prov. 4:23, KJV) The “heart” here means our deepest inward convictions and beliefs about what we think we are worthy of having, in the outer, as a part of our life experience.

The word to be stressed as yo make your own blueprint of your expectations for the upcoming year is “great.” Great expectations! Make those expectations large, if you would experience the largeness of God’s abundant giving. All the good and great desire for more health, wealth, and happiness, is really His own spiritual desire to fulfill Himself in and through you – in a joyous, rich, and expansive way of life.

Remember, only a happy new you produces a happy new year!

I would like to share with you a prayer, coming to you straight from my own heart. I pray that this year may be a truly happy year for you, a year filled with rich and wonderful belessings. I pray that it may be a year in which you walk in close companionship with God, a year in which you know and feel God’s loving Presence enfolding you and your loved ones. I pray that this may be a year in which the good is magnified in your heart and in the heart of every person, a year in which all of us may come to see more clearly our oneness with one another. I pray that, in the words of Psalms 65:11, “Thou crownest the year with thy goodness.”

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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There are two stories of the birth of the Christ child in the synoptic gospels. One is in the gospel of Matthew, which was written from the perspective of Jesus being the fulfillment of the Hebraic prophecy of the coming Messiah (read Matt. 2:1-2; 9-11). The other is in the gospel of Luke, who was writing for the Gentiles (read Luke 2:8-18).

The stage is set. We have the wise men, sometimes called kings, bringing their gifts; we have the “holy family,” as it is called, in the stable which is probably a cave; and there is the baby, Jesus. Then there are shepherds; and there we have angels.

So the stage is set for this great event.

Can you picture it in your mind; does it bring back to you that special story? As you think about Bethlehem, think about it today. Bethlehem is about six miles south of Jerusalem and it is still a fairly small town. The shepherd boy, David, who was to become a king was born there. Approximately three hundred years after the birth of the Christ child, Constantinople and his family became Christians and Constantinople’s mother, Helena, had a church built there on the spot where Jesus was supposed to have been born. It is called the Church of the Nativity.

Thousands of tourists and pilgrims visit that spot today. But it seems that Bethlehem is constantly in the news and is a center of strife, because Moslems, Christians and Jews all see it as a strategic place both for sacred and for politic means. So it has, in a sense, become a battleground.

Is the Bethlehem in your own mind a battleground too? Sometimes our mind is like a battleground, and we might wonder if there is a place for the Christ child to be born there.

In the story there was no place in the inn; and the inn basically symbolizes our intellect. There’s no place in the intellect for a Christ child to be born, for the Spirit of God to be born. The Christ child has to be born in our heart, which is represented by the stable.

So what does Bethlehem mean to you today?

A woman writes that she had been listening to some children caroling “How far to Bethlehem?” The song says, “Not very far.”

The woman who was writing about her experience was remembering a time when she was a child; she had moved with her parents to New York City and was separated from the rest of her family who lived in another city. She was feeling overwhelmed and homesick for her grandparents and her familiar friends who were all back in the Midwest somewhere.

She and her parents visited a big church in New York, and she remembered that she was sitting near the back of the church in an aisle seat. The church was having a Christmas pageant. She said that even though she was timid and shy and was feeling overwhelmed by a sense of separation, she was feeling the movement of Christmas; she had a sense of awe as the Christmas music from the organ echoed from the rafters in the church as it rolled back and forth, and the lights were dimmed and the candles were lighted.

Then, she said, the lights came up again. And as the lights came up the procession started, and down the aisle came all these colorful characters dressed in robes; there were travelers and wise men and shepherds. She said she got swept up by the pageant and as they came by her, without anyone noticing, she got up and followed them down the long aisle.

She said, “As I remember now, that long aisle was a spiritual pilgrimage for me and it seemed quite a long way at the time. But I got to the front with all of these wonderful people in the pageant. I was a part of it, and there was the stable scene and there was a soft light inside of it and there were Mary and Joseph and a sleepy donkey and real sheep and the baby Jesus with all the people gathered around. And I knelt there, and as I knelt there I felt a sense of exultation.”

She said, “I wasn’t there very long before an usher came and picked me up then carried me back to my embarrassed parents. But it didn’t matter, because I had been to Bethlehem. It was like it was real; I was there in that time and in that moment, and it has lived in my heart ever since.” She got a whispered scolding from her parents and people around her smiled and twittered, but she oblivious to all of that because she had been there; she had had an experience of Bethlehem within herself.

The woman later married a minister, and she was moved to work in a tenement area deep in New York City and for many years brought Christmas pageants to the children there, children who were deprived and would never experience anything like that if those pageants were not presented.

So the stage is set.

The story enters our hearts in different ways. I remembered a minister friend who said that before she went into ministerial school or seminary was struggling with the ideas of God and Spirit and Jesus. She said, “I could identify with God and Spirit, but I didn’t know where Jesus fit into my life anymore.”

She was thinking about it and praying about it when one day she burst out in frustration and said out loud, “I just don’t know what to do with you!” And she said in that moment, in the midst of a rolling sound of laughter around her, it was as though a deep resonant voice said, “And I don’t know what to do with you either!” She said she wasn’t given to hearing voices but she certainly heard that within herself. It’s the surprising sound of God’s presence

What I want to say to you today is that God comes to us with that surprising, unexpected presence, at times we don’t expect it and in ways we don’t expect it. I want you to capture that idea.

Sometimes we set things up in our lives which are so controlled that we don’t leave openings for the unexpected; we don’t leave openings for God to come through. We perhaps get caught up in the disorder of our lives or the disinterest and we forget that, underlying all things, is this presence of God that is seeking to burst through unexpectedly. And God does break through those barriers we set up, no matter what.

There’s a nativity scene in a Renaissance painting by Piero Della Francesca. It’s a fairly well-known painting. And when he painted it he was in his waning years, but this was a masterpiece. The nativity scene in the painting is placed in a setting of just a stone wall and a ramshackle kind of a roof over everything. There are five angels carefully grouped around in back of the child Jesus and on either side there are two angels that are quietly playing their lutes. In behind them to the right are a group of men who are really solemn, down and dull-looking. There’s a brown ox there by the men, very strong and sturdy, and he’s looking with great brown eyes directly out at the person who is looking at the picture, as much as to say “You don’t need to only look with your eyes; you need to look with your heart.”

Joseph is seated in front of the men in the picture and is looking off into the distance, and beside him there are two shepherds and one of them has his finger pointed toward the heavens as though saying rather pointedly, “If you don’t know where this is coming from, I’m just reminding you.” And there in the front is the baby Jesus, very doll-like and stiff, not in a manger but on Mary’s robe which is a royal fluorescent blue. Mary is kneeling over the child, she has every hair in place and she’s elegant; it doesn’t look like she came from birthing a child, it looks like she came from the beauty salon. There she is, leaning over Jesus, this doll-like figure. Everything is so controlled and placed in this picture except one thing.

In the back, peeking over an angel’s shoulder is a donkey; and the donkey has his head in the air, and he’s braying and laughing gleefully, showing all his teeth. What a remarkable thing; only one creature in that picture gets the story, and that’s the donkey! The donkey really sees the truth. You see, the donkey gets the joke.

We too often stand around in our lives like these stylized people and we try to control everything. It’s like manger management 101, the shepherds have to be here, the angels have to be here, the baby has to be here in a manger or at least on Mary’s coattails, and everything has to be in its place. But, you see, there is joke in this, because God breaks through, or a baby breaks through, or a donkey breaks through, and turns everything we’ve thought on its head.

It was thought that the Messiah would come on a horse, leading people to victory. And here’s this little child, vulnerable, tiny, who was to become the one who was to bring, not a charger, not more violence, but love and peace into our world. God’s presence is symbolized in this little child, and in every child that we see, and in the child within us.

God bursts forth in unexpected ways. It was Frederick Beuchner who wrote, “Blessed is he or she who sees the joke.” Can you see the joke of life that underneath all of our turmoil and troubles, worries and anxieties, there is this Emmanuel or “God-with-us,” always there, always seeking to come into our experience, and coming in unexpected ways?

Bill Moyers, years ago when he was doing a series on creativity, talked to an artist who said to him, “If you know what you are looking for, then you will never see what you don’t expect to find.”

We often think that God has to appear this way, or that way, but if we know what we’re looking for we never see what we don’t expect to find, God in different guises, God in different expressions, God as a baby, God as a donkey getting the joke. And yet, sometimes, God pops up in our lives and says, “Here I am!”

You may be driving down the street, caught in traffic, and you grind to a halt; you’re late for an important meeting and there you are, stuck at a light, and you’re fuming inside. Then you look across at the driver in the car next to you and you see that he is singing and dancing to some song on the radio. And suddenly you burst out laughing. It’s God saying, “Here I am!”

Or perhaps you’ve had an argument with your spouse and you’re still feeling upset inside; and the phone rings and it’s a neighbor saying, “Oh, I just wanted to give you a call and say hi.” And before she hangs up she says, “By the way, I want to tell you that I saw you and your wife on your walk yesterday morning and it does my heart good to see two people so much in love.” You gulp, and swallow, and put the phone down and you chuckle again because God is saying “Here I am!”

You see, God comes in unexpected places, and unexpected ways. And God always brings a sense of joy. That’s what it’s about; it’s about joy!

The angel messenger said to us, “I come to bring this message, this great news, of a joy that shall come to all the people!” Not just some of the people but all the people, if we’re open, receptive, ready to accept it. God is ready to come into our lives. God-with-us, you see, God within us. We can experience the nativity, the birth of the Christ within ourselves, if we’re open to it and not expecting it to be this way or that way, but open to the fullness of God’s expression no matter how it comes.

May you have great joy and unexpected blessings of God’s presence this Christmastime.

For, remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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In a poem called “The Explorer” one verse goes like this:

“There’s no sense in going further – it’s the edge of cultivation,”
So they said and I believed it; broke my land and sowed my crop,
Built my barns and strung my fences in the little border station
Tucked away below the foothills where the trails run out and stop.
Till a voice as bad as conscience ran interminable changes
On one everlasting whisper, day and night repeated so:
“Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look beyond the ranges,
Something lost behind the ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!”

God has endowed man with the gifts of life, of wisdom, of creativity, of judgment – and with the tools of the material world around him. We are told, “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be.”  (I John 3:2)

Why? Because we are involved in a great experiment to see what we can make of ourselves. Despite the tremendous developments of the world around us, the only world that has meaning to each individual is the world within him or her. And he or she is the only one who can explore that world!

In the creation of humankind, each person is made just a little different from others. There are no carbon copies, so no one experiment by one person can give a stock answer that will benefit everyone. Each person must undertake the experiment for himself, to see what he can do with this thing that is within him – this thing called life, his life, his very own special gift from God, his own uniqueness.

We seem to be made up of flesh and blood, a hank of hair, a few clothes, and certain conditions and surroundings. We seem to be very much the product of our environment.

But while we are thinking these thoughts, along comes an Emerson or an Einstein, a Schweitzer or a Jesus, and all the world marvels at such people and says that they are not made of the same kind of stuff that you and I are made of.

This is where we are wrong, because in reality an individual will never discover anything outside himself greater than he himself is inherently. When you hear the words of great persons, or hear great symphonies, or see masterpieces of art, these experiences are awakening within you that which has always been there, something within you that corresponds to what the masters have done and are doing. In a sense, they are giving you back to yourself. This is one of the many adventures of self-discovery in the great experiment of life.

If you actually believe in a power greater than you are, you come to know that you, as a human being, have nothing to do with the processes of life whatsoever. You live, but you did not create your own life; you think, but you did not create your own mind; you are spirit, but you did not make that spirit.

All at once we are confronted with a thought so stupendous that it almost staggers the imagination: There is something in me that is greater than I appear to be! And that something really isn’t myself, as a mere human being, at all. It is something which is God expressing Himself as me, something which is me as God sees me, something which is limitless, all-powerful, all-knowing. And because this something is spirit, it is always experienced to the extent of my realization, my faith, my vision.

St. Thomas Aquinas once said that there are only three really important endeavors in life: to have faith in the right things; to hope for the right things; and to love the right things. That is our job – and to press on in the expansion of our consciousness, to increase our faith in the infinite power that resides within us as the self that is yet to be.

(This article is adapted from an 1976 essay by Rev. Eric Butterworth, The Explorer)

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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There’s a little song that goes like this:

If you go down to the woods today you’re in for a big surprise;

If you go down to the woods today you’d better go in disguise;

For every bear that ever there was will be there for certain because

Today’s the day the teddy bears have their picnic.

The song, of course, says that if you go down to the woods today you’re in for a big surprise. But sometimes those surprises are not always welcome, and it says “and you’d better go in disguise.”

In mythology, going to the woods is symbolic of going into the darkness, into the unknown. So it says you’d better go in disguise, you can’t really go with your normal everyday self because if you do that then you’ll be fearful of what’s going to happen. All the bears are gathering. You know what happens when the bears gather, in our financial world anyway. A lot of hardship and problems may happen, right?

So the bears are gathering. So we can’t go with our normal consciousness; we have to go with a new awareness. And when we come in a new guise or a new self, with a new heart or a new spirit, then God turns our bears into teddy bears.

So if you’ve got bears in your life, know that they can be turned into teddy bears. Listen to this promise of God in Isaiah 41:

“I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys;

I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry lands springs of water.

I will put in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive;

I will set in the desert the cypress, the plane and the pine together;

that men may see and know, may consider and understand together,

that the hand of the Lord has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it.”

This is the realization that, truly, God turns bears into teddy bears; God turns the dry lands into springs of living water.

We must let go of old perceptions, old beliefs, and old limited ways of seeing. We must open our eyes to a new way of seeing.

There’s a story that was in the Associated Press several years ago, around this time of year. It was about some Japanese fishermen in the Sea of Japan. Their boat got hit by a falling cow. This may sound rather unusual, but that’s what happened. It seems that there was an airplane, a transport plane from Russia, flying over the Sea of Japan with some cows they had just picked up in Siberia.

While they were on the trip, the cows became restless – it’s a true story! I don’t know why they became restless, maybe because of the food on the airplane. Anyway, they became restless and they were endangering the airplane. So the crew decided to open the cargo door in the rear of the plane, and the cows stampeded right out of the airplane.

Now you can imagine the chill of the mariner hearing the dreaded “Moo!” of a falling heifer in excess of a hundred miles an hour. And then, boom! It hit the boat, and it sank the boat. The fishermen were saved, but the real tragedy of the story would be if those fishermen did not go back again to fish in the Sea of Japan for fear of being hit again by a falling cow.

Now we all have falling cows in our lives, don’t we? Sometimes they’re in the subconscious mind; sometimes they’re very much in the outer experience too. But if we fear going on with our lives because another falling cow may be coming our way, then we’ll never take any more risks, will we? We’ll never step out again.

Listen to this promise of God:

“I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness,

I have taken you by the hand and kept you;

I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations,

To open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,

from the prison those who sit in darkness.” (Isa. 42:6-7)

That’s quite a promise!

It’s so easy to look at what happened before and say, “I’m never going to get involved in that again, because look what happened!” Instead of this look to God’s promise, that God holds you by the hand and takes you out of the prison consciousness of limitation and brings you into a whole new awareness.

How do you see your world? Do you see it as a friendly world? Or is it a fear-filled world? When you look at your world, what does it feel like to you? Is it filled with danger? Or is it filled with a sense of security and love?

Listen again to God’s promise:

“And I will lead the blind in a way that they know not,

in paths that they have not known I will guide them.

I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground.

These are the things I will do, and I will not forsake them.” (Isa. 42:16)

Even in the difficult times of life, we need a new way of seeing. We need to open our inner eyes and see if we can find a blessing in there just waiting for us to recognize it.

Remember, God is Blessing You Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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When someone close to us dies, especially if it is sudden, it can be difficult to adjust to that movement and sense of loss. But I think perhaps it can bring two things to mind for us:

First of all, we can learn to treasure the time we have with one another, to love one another and be with one another in the fullness of our spirit. And another thing is that, although our loved one goes into a realm that we are not able to see at this time, we can know that life is eternal, there is a timelessness to life and we can establish a new relationship with our loved one in that dimension.

We live really on two levels. One, we live on a physical level where we relate to one another in the outer. And we do our work, and we have our homes, and we have our families and our loved ones and friends. We live in a world where sometimes we are thrown by difficulties and we go through dark times. We judge much by appearance.

Then there is another world that is parallel to it, a world that has no beginning and no end, a world that I think of as timeless. It is a world that is our spiritual world and is the true heritage of our being, that from which we sprang in the very beginning. Creation happens not only in the outer but happens within us all the time, and that creative spirit is always at work within us.

In our journey through life, if we can shift from being an outer-oriented person to being an inner-oriented person, to being aware of the timelessness of life, then we see that life did not begin at birth nor does it end at death. We can also see a dimension where we can truly say that we dare to believe that God is good.

Every tradition has its creation story. You will remember the creation story in Genesis, where it says “And God created heaven and earth.” And it goes on in all the different aspects of that creation, and in every phase it says “And God saw that everything was good.” So we see the good being expressed through the creative spirit. Then later, in each of the gospels, we see that same creation story repeated many times in different ways through new beginnings in different situations.

It is significant that in each of the religious traditions across the world we find creation stories. The creation story is important to all people because it points us in the direction of our true roots. We are rooted in the beginning with God. We were created in the beginning with God.

We read in the scriptures that the Jews were confused when Jesus spoke to them about Abraham. They said that their father was Abraham, and he said “Well, you’re not acting like your father was Abraham, so Abraham really isn’t your father.” They scoffed at him and spoke jeeringly to him. Then he said, “Before Abraham was, I am.” And they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. (John 8:59).

What was Jesus saying there? He wasn’t speaking of his personal self; he was speaking of his spiritual nature, saying in essence “In the beginning of time, I was there.”

That is true of all of us, we have been from the beginning of time created in the likeness and in the image of the living God.

We are here to bring forth the fruits of that creativity in our lives. How do we do that? How do we focus on that instead of getting caught up in the appearance of things and seeing our limitations amid our doubts and our fears?

First we must become aware that there is a dimension which can be recognized as being timeless. We then move consciously into that recognition as we adapt for ourselves a spiritual discipline, a discipline of how we deal with time and how we relate to it in our lives.

There’s a story of St. Ignatius Loyola, who founded the Jesuit order, about when he was a student. He was playing a ball game with some fellow students and one of them said to the group, “Now, if the world were to end tomorrow what would you do right now?” Some of them said, “Well, we’d go out and get drunk and we’d do all of the things we wouldn’t do normally.” And the other half said, “No, we would go to the church and throw ourselves on our knees and pray that we would be safe and certain forever.” Ignatius hadn’t spoken, so one of them asked him what he would do. He said, “I would go on playing my game.”

You see, we must not get caught up in the “forever.” Nor must we get caught up in just living for today. We must combine the two, because each one is hinged upon the other in a timeless way.

We are the very essence of the creative Spirit of God in expression right here on earth, right now, today. And the future, of our own selves and of our world, really depends on how we bring forth that creative spirit in our own lives.

Each one of us is unique, and we have much to give to our world. We have peace to give, we have love to give, and we have the gifts of the spirit to share. Yet we must discipline ourselves, in a gentle way, in a spiritual way, to be open to the Spirit that expresses through us naturally if we turn to it and we let it. For we are truly spiritual travelers on a timeless way!

God is Blessing You, Right Now!

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By Marlene Buffa

(Taking a quiet sideways glance at life, our guest contributor today, Marlene Buffa, offers insight through her words from experiences. A student of new-thought teachings, Marlene finds practical spirituality around every corner and seeks wisdom through observation of life’s inter-relationships. Sometimes playful, sometimes poignant, always thought-provoking, her writing inspires readers in meaningful ways.
www.wordsofmind.com)

Halloween brings to light our memories and our apprehensions and enlivens our imagination.  Each year we honestly portray ourselves as something other than who we are, and venture out into the night fearlessly asking for what we want from strangers and friends.  The chant, “Trick or Treat!” resounds on neighborhood streets, with a telltale confidence that our abundant rewards, sweet and freely given, fill the largest container we dare to hold.  Life, too, offers us the opportunity to boldly request our desires from others as well as the Universe.  Just as our expectations of creepy “things that go bump in the night” sometimes come to fruition at Halloween, other evidence of things outside of ourselves interjecting with our humanity, finds its way into our daily experience.

Knock Knock
More than just a childhood formulaic riddle, spirit knocking on the door of our consciousness forces us to awaken to new possibilities.  My friend Ann’s condo, replete with sounds and noises from unearthly visitors, resonates with a loud knock, or rap on her wooden front door.  The wooden door is closed and behind a locked metal security door so no one can make contact with the wood, yet the sounds echo throughout her living room – loud enough that her neighbors hear it, too!  Ann gave up going to the door to see her anxious caller because after dozens of times, she found no one there.

Spirit knocks on our door, too.  Many times Spirit is there asking for an invitation to enter our lives, yet finds us not home to answer.  Over and over, we hear the call to a greater life, and either ignore it or find we cannot face the greatness it offers.  We must prepare ourselves equally to knock on the door of opportunity and to answer the call when opportunity beckons us.  Take the initiative to dare for a great life and you may just receive a “treat!” you weren’t expecting!

Bump
From fender benders, to bumper cars, we often equate a bump with a collision in transportation.  We’ve all heard the “bumps in the night” which startle us from sleep yet we dismiss such noises as the house settling or our pets rousting about.  Bumping into unseen forces, we sometimes feel a hovering entity or looming feeling surrounding us, daring to collide with our circumventing comfort zone.  With our bodies as vehicles transporting us on the planet, collisions occur naturally with others and with Spirit around us. 

Nothing to fear, these gentle bumps into our beingness serve to remind us and alert us of the awakened world in which we roam.  Like the bumper in a pinball machine, Life stands there, solid and immovable, waiting for us to bump into it.  We dart off in a different direction, most times not due to any epiphany of understanding, rather from the shock of the bump itself – the bump we created. 

When Life or Spirit bumps into us, it renders a touching reminder for us to awaken to the events and emotions around us while we make our way on the planet.  From the premonitory diversion to avoid an accident, to the gentle nudge into something better, Life reminds us of the power of the Infinite as a gentle teacher. 

Whoosh!
The older we grow, the quicker time passes.  Our perception and vantage point change as time reflects against the accumulation of our experience.  Time, as we interpret it through man-made dials and clocks, remains constant and some say, circular or infinite.  Unseen thoughts, entities and even energies wrap around us, check us out, and whisk away – in an instant.  The indescribable feeling of déjà vu, or the instinctive choices we make, represents our higher selves responding to Life. 

When life streaks by us in our unaware state of the daily banal, we waste precious time in the coma of disengagement.  Awaken from the sleep of drudgery and live the life you want to live!  Too often we “wake up” and we find our children getting married – wondering where did their childhood go?  Could twenty years pass without your conscious awareness of it?  Worse yet – did those years whoosh by without our enjoyment and fulfillment of precious moments?
Halloween reminds us to step outside of our normal persona to experience something new.  With the eerie knocks, bumps and whooshes, we attract that which we fear but know is real.  It’s easy to blame playful ghosts for the pranks they often wield on us, when our true fears lie within us – and we’re too afraid to face them.  As nurturer of our spirits and benevolent guide, Life knocks on the door of our consciousness offering us a deeper existence, bumps into us and diverts us onto a higher path and whooshes by us reminding us it’s never too late to wake up!

Please feel free to publish this article in your blog or newsletter or share it with a friend, as long as you include this resource box.

If you’d like to receive weekday inspirational quotes, you can subscribe at Rich Words.

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Yes, it’s FINALLY here – here’s some news from Song Chengxiang that you may have been waiting for . . . 

The long-awaited Quantum Confidence with The Morry Method system has just been released.

There are only limited number of copies available, grab your copy before it is too late.

Launch time is 11:00 am Eastern TODAY, Tuesday, October 6.

Here is the link to get your copy as soon as it is launched:

Click Here!

Whatever problems or frustrations you have
right now in your life, it all comes down to
your inadequate self image. This is the root
cause of all your problems in life.

The Quantum Confidence system is by far the
only “The Morry Method” brainwave
entrainment system that eliminates the root
cause, and frees you from your personal
bondage of the present inadequate self image.

And it employs a combination of advanced
cutting-edge brain technology based on
latest scientific research, including “The
Morry Method” brainwave entrainment
technology, the revolutionary new “Quantum
Triliminal” technology, hypnosis, advanced
subliminal technology, etc.

For the first time EVER, average people like
you and I can benefit from so many advanced
latest technologies in one system.

Get It Here!

Best of all, it’s guaranteed to work.

Just listen to what people are saying on
the blog after using a small sample
recording from the system:

————————————–
Al Says: (September 28th, 2009 at 2:51 pm)

Although I’ve been listening to TMM for
quite some time I noticed an immediate
change on listening to Quantum Confidence
Lite.

It seems like a whole layer of anxiety has
been removed very quickly and I am feeling
stronger and well, more confident.

Since this is from a few days of using the
“lite” version I am looking forward eagerly
to using the full version.

Thanks a million Morry
————————————–
Lorne A Says: (September 28th, 2009 at 3:19 pm)
 
I know that I needed to boost my self
confidence to help manifest the things I
desire.

The big thing I wanted to achieve was a good
manger position. I have been listening to
Quantum confidence for about a week now & I
feel more confident for the majority of the
day.

I got a call on Thursday for an interview &
had my second interview on the weekend. I am
now waiting for the call I have got the job!
I do not believe in coincidence… and think
it was the Quantum confidence that helped me
get the good paying job.

Thanks Morry!

Lorne

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DANIEL Says: (September 28th, 2009 at 3:05 pm)

I have everything that Morry has created.The
results are undeniable.

I challenge anyone to listen to this sample
and not feel much better and relaxed.You do
nothing but listen.Your brain hears these
tones and is soothed by the recording.

I go to sleep every night with the
Triliminals playing in my headset. I have,
like a lot of other people tried all the
other stuff out on the market and this is
the cutting edge product.

These recordings are needed now more than
ever in these very challenging
times. Confidence is everything.

Also another very critical thing is that
Morry is passionate about his product and
despite being busy coming up with more
recordings he is very accessible. You owe it
to yourself to get his programs.

I also am a full time stock trader and one
of the biggest obstacles for any trader is
being too emotional. It usually leads to bad
decisions. I can honestly say that my
emotions are no longer an issue as I am
relaxed and focused. My equity has gone up
as well.

Dont let life live you, you must learn to
truly live life. This is a tool that will
help. I wish you all well in your journey to
a better life.

————————————–
michelle Says: (September 29th, 2009 at 1:49 am )
 
I have been struggling with math for years
and was currently not understanding my
course in college at all about to give up.

I decided to try working on it while listening
to the morry method, and sure enough i got
on A on the assignment and quiz the next day
which is something i never thought i would
be able to do.

————————————–

These are what people got from using just a
small 20min sample from the entire system of
a set of 10 CDs.

Imagine what the whole system can do for
your own life and the life of your loved
ones.

Get a copy for yourself, it will be sold out
very fast.

Here is the link to grab your copy, at 11:00 am today:

Quantum Confidence

To your success

song chengxiang

———————————————

And here’s a P.S. you can be happy about:

They offer a life-time money back
guarantee, if you don’t like this system for
whatever reason, return it anytime and get a
full refund. No questions asked! You can see
how much confidence they have on this
system.

Grab your copy now before they’re all gone:

Click Here Now!

PPS. Feel free to forward this announcement to any
of your friends that needs it the most.

God is Blessing You Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-seven years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions.

Please feel free to publish this article in your blog or newsletter or share it with a friend, as long as you include this resource box.

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To help you realize your greatest potential, several of today’s up and coming spiritual growth leaders have shared their wisdom in a power-packed transformational ebook.

It’s called The Self Empowerment Guidebook.

You Can Get it Here!

Each expert explores self empowerment from a different perspective, ultimately giving you a well-rounded and highly effective approach on what it takes for you to empower yourself and live a life of joy and success.

You can grab your copy for free right now by clicking on the link below.

Click Here!

My friend, Chris Cade, has lovingly put this ebook together and is charging absolutely nothing for it. I’ve known Chris for a while now and one of his best qualities that I’ve discovered is his devotion to people like you and me.

He wants you to succeed. He wants you to be happy. He wants you to be prosperous.

And his latest ebook is just one way that he can help you achieve these things.

Click on the link below to go to his website and follow the instructions to download ‘The Self Empowerment Guidebook.’

Get it Here!

Wishing you much abundance,

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

P.S. You’ll also have an exclusive opportunity to get 3 powerful audio interviews with Chris for an unbelievably low rock-bottom price. I highly recommend you take advantage of his offer!

—————————————————–

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-seven years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions.

Please feel free to publish this article in your blog or newsletter or share it with a friend, as long as you include this resource box.

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